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      in World Politics

      Israel Is the Rock on Which US Foreign Policy Is Built

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      International military cooperation can take many forms. When pushed to the extreme, it can even turn into its opposite. What was meant to protect from danger can sometimes become the fact that precipitates an unwanted conflict. For that reason, most nations now seek to avoid the once popular idea of mutual defense treaties. Such agreements tend to bind each of the parties to supporting and participating in a war that one of them may provoke or be provoked into. It may also have the effect of alienating otherwise friendly nations, who suddenly find themselves cast in the role of the enemy. This not only constrains the ordinary foreign policy of both nations but may, at unforeseen moments, force them into situations over which they have no control.

      One example of the risk attached to a mutual defense treaty is currently playing out in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte. The Biden administration is attempting to mobilize its historical allies in a complex effort to counter Chinese expansion. For over a century, the US and the Philippines have been militarily joined at the hip. All that changed with the arrival of the mercurial Duterte. An article in The Diplomat recounts the successive phases of a truly rocambolesque relationship marked by “the volatility and unpredictably that Duterte has injected into the U.S.-Philippine alliance since 2016. … Despite the Biden administration’s attempts to reset the U.S.-Philippine alliance, Duterte remains an unstable factor in the equation.”

      Whereas most nations studiously avoid engaging in mutual defense treaties, the US has long been an exception. This is the consequence of positioning itself as the leader of multiple military alliances and its imperial need to establish hundreds of military bases across the entire globe. But unlike traditional bilateral mutual defense partnerships, the US typically cultivates an asymmetrical balance. 

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      In Europe it’s a different story. However close its relationship with developed nations such as the UK, France or Germany following the Second World War, the US could not be bound bilaterally to follow the eventual warlike initiatives of any of those nations. Europe and the US solved that problem by creating NATO, effectively spreading the responsibility across a range of partner countries while creating and entertaining the belief that the only real threat came from the Soviet Union.

      Then there’s the case of the curious military alliance between the US and Israel. Never has an alliance appeared more subject to irrational emotion than this one. This past week its irrationality led to a skirmish between lawmakers in Washington over the memorandum of understanding on “security assistance” signed by President Barack Obama in 2016. This was Obama’s parting gift to Israel, a country with whom he had maintained a somewhat uncomfortable relationship due largely to the brazenly irrational behavior of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The MOU was a pledge of American support with hard cash over 10 years.

      Al Jazeera describes the showdown. When “progressive Democratic legislators proposed a bill seeking to regulate American assistance in an effort to stop human rights abuse against Palestinians,” they didn’t have to wait long for the response of their colleagues, who were in no mood for a subtle debate. Citing “particularly strong bipartisan backing” for unconditional support by the US government of Israel, a group of 300 legislators made it clear that Israel is the one country of whom no questions will ever be asked and on whom no conditions may ever be imposed. The legislators explained why no debate is possible: “American security assistance to Israel helps counter these threats, and our rock-solid security partnership serves as a deterrent against even more significant attacks on our shared interests.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Shared interests:

      A basis of agreement and mutual indulgence between two or more people ranging from cultural tastes in the consumption of music and art and participation in mutually profitable activities at one extreme to the taste for domination and genocidal pacification at another extreme.

      Contextual Note

      In a paragraph listing the reasons for their unwavering support, the lawmakers begin by citing the most recent assault on Israel’s well-being: “Israel continues to face direct threats from Iran and its terrorist proxies. In February, an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman was hit by a mysterious explosion that Israel has attributed as an attack by Iran.” The lawmakers feel no need to mention that only days earlier, the Israelis had admitted to assassinating an Iranian scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in November 2020. Nor did they feel compelled to cite Israel’s spectacular attack on Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz this month. Israel has created a state of ongoing war that could at any moment spin out of control, setting the entire Middle East ablaze.

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      To complicate things, all observers are aware of the fact that the Israelis are driven by their opposition to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, President Obama’s initiative that, as candidate, Biden had said he would seek to piece back together after Donald Trump’s impetuous withdrawal and aggressive attack on the partners who wished to maintain it. In short, Israel has been actively and boldly seeking through legal and illegal means (assassination, sabotage) to undermine the Biden administration’s official US foreign policy. In normal times, the last thing lawmakers would suggest is offering that nation “unconditional” support.

      What precisely are the “shared interests” the American lawmakers are referring to? They mention “U.S. national security interests in a highly challenging region.” Recent history has shown the US challenging the region rather than the region challenging the US. Initiating violent and endless wars, from Pakistan to Libya and Somalia, can hardly be called a case of being challenged. Neither is supporting Saudi Arabia’s catastrophic war in Yemen — as the US is continuing to do despite the Biden administration’s pullback — a case of being challenged.

      Historical Note

      The entire history of Israel since its creation in 1948 is fraught with moral and political ambiguity. At the time, the West in general and Britain in particular played a neo-colonial game that has led to decades of violence, oppressive behavior and permanent regional instability. The plight of the Palestinian people constitutes one of the modern tragedies of history. This week, Human Rights Watch reported that “Israel is committing ‘crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.’”

      Morally ambiguous situations such as this should logically require nuanced policies aimed at resolving tensions and establishing some sort of permanent equilibrium. Biden’s secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, solemnly announced in Israel last week that “Our commitment to Israel is enduring and it is iron-clad.” Unconditional support, “rock-solid security partnerships” and iron-clad commitment should not even be considered in such cases. And yet those are the only metaphors permitted within the Beltway when speaking of Israel.

      The lawmakers cite Israel’s support for “security partners like Jordan and Egypt,” which they see as instrumental in helping to “promote regional stability and deal with common challenges from Iran and its terrorist proxies.” Egypt happens to be a brutal military dictatorship, but so long as dictators can ensure some form of stability, they seem to correspond to the lawmakers’ essential criterion as “partners.”

      In their conclusion, the lawmakers write, “Just as foreign assistance is an investment in advancing our values and furthering our global interests, security aid to Israel is a specific investment in the peace and prosperity of the entire Middle East.” This might have sounded slightly less irrational had they simply eliminated the phrase “advancing our values.” What values? The rule of law? Israel itself has been violating all the laws and resolutions imposed by the international organization that validated its creation, the United Nations. The “security partners” with whom the US has built alliances are essentially sanguinary military dictatorships who have no time for democracy, freedom, due process, “liberty and justice for all” or any of the “values” Americans traditionally vaunt and flaunt as their legacy.

      There is little doubt that the legislators will get their way. The progressive attempt to offer even a small margin of maneuver to US foreign policy with regard to Israel will be dismissed out of hand as an obvious act of impertinence. Everything will return to normal. That is, after all, what Biden himself promised.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      US homeland security review to address threat of extremism within agency

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      The US Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced an internal review to address the threat of domestic violent extremism within the sprawling federal agency.Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said senior DHS officials would explore ways to detect and prevent extremism within.The government agency has a huge range of functions under its umbrella, ranging from the Secret Service, transport security, and an office countering weapons of mass destruction, as well as the US Coast Guard and the country’s primary immigration enforcement agencies.“Domestic violent extremism poses the most lethal and persistent terrorism-related threat to our country today,” Mayorkas said.“As we work to safeguard our nation, we must be vigilant in our efforts to identify and combat domestic violent extremism within both the broader community and our own organization.”DHS did not cite any specific incidents in announcing the review and did not immediately respond to questions about the review.The agency has increased its focus on domestic extremism since Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and took office in January.Past incidents include a Coast Guard lieutenant who was accused of being a domestic terrorist and was convicted on weapons and drug charges last year.Shortly after Biden took office, DHS issued a rare terrorism bulletin warning of the lingering potential for violence from people motivated by antigovernment sentiment after the election.This suggested that the 6 January 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington DC, by extremist supporters of Donald Trump, incited by the outgoing Republican president and for which he was impeached for an historic second time, may embolden extremists and set the stage for additional attacks.The agency also directed state, local and tribal agencies receiving annual DHS grants to direct 7.5% of the funds toward addressing the threat from domestic extremism. More

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      in US Politics

      US to share up to 60m vaccine doses amid pressure to lead global virus fight

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      The US will share up to 60m doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine with other countries, the White House has announced, amid intensifying pressure for it to lead the global fight against the pandemic.The pledge came as Joe Biden spoke with Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, which is reportedly running out of Covid-19 vaccines just as a deadly second wave continues to devastate the country.Hospitals across the capital, Delhi, continued to issue SOS calls over acute oxygen shortages, with eight patients dying in private hospitals on Sunday when oxygen supplies ran dry. Many of the biggest hospitals in the capital said they had stopped admitting new patients as all beds were full and oxygen was running out, while Delhi’s Ganga Ram hospital said it was in “beg and borrow mode” for oxygen cylinders used in its ambulances.The US has committed to send India oxygen systems, ventilators, testing kits, therapeutic drugs and personal protective equipment.Biden “pledged America’s full support to provide emergency assistance and resources in the fight against Covid-19”, the US president tweeted. “India was there for us, and we will be there for them.”America has vaccinated more than 53% of its adult population with at least one dose of its three authorised vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and it expects to have enough supply for its entire population by early summer. This has fuelled demands for it to step up and help the rest of the world, especially as China and Russia’s aggressive international donations led to concerns that they are beating Washington at “vaccine diplomacy”.The White House announced on Monday it would distribute the AstraZeneca vaccine overseas as production allows. Andy Slavitt, the White House senior Covid-19 adviser, posted on Twitter: “US to release 60 million AstraZeneca doses to other countries as they become available.”Much of the US effort over the past year has been focused inwards, but the crisis in India has concentrated minds. The virus is ripping through a population of nearly 1.4bn, with the healthcare system on the brink of collapse.On Monday, India set another record for new coronavirus infections: a fifth day in a row at more than 350,000. It reported running out of Covid-19 vaccines, and numerous hospitals in the country are desperately low on supplies of oxygen. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, described the recent surge as “beyond heartbreaking”.From Saturday, everyone in India over 18 will be eligible for a vaccine, a decision made by the government as the virus has brought India’s healthcare system to its knees, with more than 352,000 new cases on Monday and more than 2,800 more deaths.High hopes have been placed on an expanded vaccine rollout to help halt the spread of the virus. However, in several of the worst-affected states, including Rajasthan, Punjab, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, state governments have said there is already a shortage or complete lack of jabs, and they had been unable to order more, throwing doubt on to any expansion of vaccine rollout by 1 May, when about 900 million more people will become eligible.Almost 10% of India’s population of 1.3 billion have received one jab. Just over 1% have received both vaccines.In the week to 25 April, India recorded a cumulative 89% increase in Covid deaths compared with the week before, and a total of 2.2m new cases – the highest seven-day increase experienced anywhere in the world. Total confirmed infections have now passed 17m.Most of the onus to deliver the vaccines has fallen on India’s Serum Institute, the country’s largest vaccine producer, which produces the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, known in India as Covishield. However, it has been struggling to meet demand, with capacity currently to make only 70m doses a month. Last week the government approved a $400m grant to the company to boost production to 100m doses a month by the end of May.The grim picture is thrown into sharp relief by the speedy vaccination progress of richer countries such as the US, the UK and Israel.The AstraZeneca vaccine is widely in use around the world but has not yet been authorised by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US. The US decision to distribute the AstraZeneca vaccine abroad was made easier because it does not need the doses domestically.A senior White House official told reporters on a conference call: “Given the strong portfolio of vaccines that the US already has and that have been authorised by the FDA, and given that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not authorized for use in the US, we do not need to use the AstraZeneca vaccine here during the next few months.“Therefore the US is looking at options to share the AstraZeneca doses with other countries as they become available.”Before any AstraZeneca doses can be shipped, however, they must meet the FDA’s “expectations for product quality”, the official said.Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said at a briefing: “We are continuing to look for a range of ways to help India so we’re talking about what we can redirect, what is available now. A lot of what they need at this moment is oxygen; that is what they will tell you. We are quite focused on that, as well as PPE, testing and other immediate needs they have now.”Sending vaccines to India, Psaki explained, will take longer.She said: “Right now we have zero doses available at AstraZeneca. We’re talking about what the FDA needs to go through, a review to ensure the safety and it’s meeting our own guidelines.”Psaki said approximately 10m doses could be released when the FDA grants approval, but warned that this would not be immediate.Asked about criticism that the US response is coming late, Psaki added: “The US has been one of the largest providers of assistance to address the Covid pandemic around the world including to India.” More

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      in World Politics

      Western Sahara: Washington’s Accidental Red Line

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      Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made one thing clear about the Trump administration’s approach to US foreign policy: It’s going to change. In his first month on the job, Secretary Blinken rescinded former President Donald Trump’s designation of the Houthis as a terrorist group, reaffirmed America’s strategic partnerships and announced plans to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council.

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      This is just the beginning. Blinken’s predecessor, Mike Pompeo, left what many consider to be an internecine mess on the world stage, and Secretary Blinken could hardly have inherited his department at a more crucial moment. However, between his firm words on the US relationship with China and Russia, Blinken must also give top priority to a lesser-known foreign policy debacle simmering in North Africa: the Western Sahara conflict. Thanks to the Trump administration’s shortsighted acts, this conflict now directly threatens US regional diplomacy and has turned more dangerous than ever.

      Trouble in the Sahara

      The trouble first began in Western Sahara in the 1970s, when Spain decolonized the territory following pressure from the United States. Neighboring Morocco held secret negotiations with Madrid to take over half of Western Sahara, with the other half going to Mauritania. These plans leaked, to the ire of the Polisario Front, a nationalist rebel group in Western Sahara, and its military wing began a 16-year guerrilla war that ensnared Morocco, Mauritania, Spain, Algeria, France, Libya and the US. Tens of thousands of people died.

      Officially, the fighting concluded in 1991 with a UN-brokered ceasefire agreement, which created the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to facilitate a solution. Three decades later, that solution has yet to appear, and opportunistic decisions by the Trump administration have now thrown even the ceasefire into doubt.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In fact, hostilities resumed on Trump’s watch. In November 2020, the Polisario Front began blocking commercial trade in the border zone of Guerguerat. In response, Moroccan troops launched a military operation to secure local roads, resulting in sporadic shooting matches and casualties along the berm — a 1,700-mile-long sand barrier Morocco built to contain opposing forces. Polisario top brass immediately condemned the move, lamenting the end of the UN ceasefire. The situation appeared incredibly fragile.

      Then in swooped President Trump with the Abraham Accords. Capping off a spate of victories that restored diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, Trump focused his energies on securing the support of Morocco. Rabat agreed to the terms on December 10, in exchange for the United States to finally recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, which became the only country in the world ever to do so.

      Diplomatically, Morocco’s participation in the accords won Trump another round of praise from supporters of the state of Israel, to say nothing of Trump’s longtime ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But strategically, the Abraham Accords sent a far sharper message in North Africa: Stop the violence. The move to back Moroccan claims of sovereignty signaled America’s commitment to invest greater security resources in Morocco, including in regional peacekeeping to tamp down the Western Sahara conflict. It restyles American support as a high-stakes tripwire in the Maghreb, not to be crossed by either the Polisario Front or Rabat.

      Tripwire

      The US International Development Finance Corporation’s pledge to invest $5 billion in Morocco, as well as former US Ambassador to Morocco David Fischer’s announcement of a consulate in Dakhla, Western Sahara, began enforcing this tripwire. Nevertheless, this did not stop Polisario fighters from causing more violence in Guerguerat on January 24, launching four rockets at Moroccan targets overnight. Moroccan and American forces dramatically outnumber the rebels in both numbers and weapons, making the January flare-up stunning. However, by disregarding the US conditions and striking Morocco, the Polisario Front has made good on its threats to resume its armed struggle, imperiling both American activities and regional stability in the process.

      First, the Polisario Front will likely launch a campaign of low-level tactical aggression in key southern zones, which will force a Moroccan response through either political pressure or military channels. This could lead Morocco to threaten military action. Such a provocation would almost certainly inflame nationalist zeal in Morocco — to which reclaiming Western Sahara is key — and immediately complicate the US role in Dakhla. Finally, Washington will be faced with an awful choice. It will be forced to either support a hawkish, emboldened Morocco or talk Rabat into a position of non-action that will be extremely unpopular domestically and may give a green light to the Polisario Front to wage even broader campaigns.

      In other words, the rocket launches in Guerguerat were not wanton decisions by a flailing guerrilla force. They were calculated, deliberate acts by the Polisario Front to test the US tripwire in Dakhla. They drive Washington to the extreme options of reining in its historical ally, sanctioning a new, Morocco-led war in Western Sahara or committing US forces to preserve peace and deal with the problem itself. Put simply, the tripwire failed, and the Polisario Front deftly called America’s bluff. With Trump-era actions laying the groundwork for present developments, the Polisario’s actions effectively begin a broader strategy to weaken the collective defense elements of the US-Morocco alliance.

      By injecting himself into the Western Sahara fiasco, with no hindsight or understanding of its history, Trump planted diplomatic and strategic landmines that the Biden administration will need to work tirelessly to defuse. Worse, the former president’s actions have sucked Washington into the unenviable position of enforcing an accidental red line in North Africa, one that the Polisario Front has already, gleefully, crossed. And if Joe Biden sends in troops, it will serve only to raise the ghosts of Vietnam: another drawn-out, faraway engagement in which the United States holds no legitimate best interest.

      Secretary Blinken must do more than take “a hard look” at the Abraham Accords. He must rescind the State Department’s recognition of Moroccan control over Western Sahara and allow MINURSO to continue its work. He must renegotiate the Western Sahara provisions of the accords — which former Secretary of State James Baker, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Senator Jim Inhofe and Western Sahara expert Stephen Zunes have all denounced as mistaken — and join President Biden in rescinding Trump’s proclamation on the topic. He must scrap plans to build a US consulate in Dakhla, and, unless he wants to entangle our troops in an unnecessary foreign incursion, he must do it at once. The stability of North Africa depends upon it.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Charismatic Leadership and the Far Right

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      Horia Sima, a central figure within the interwar Romanian fascist organization the Iron Guard, once described his leader, Corneliu Codreanu, as follows:

      “What was most impressive, on first contact with Codreanu, was his physical appearance. Nobody could pass him by without noticing him, without being attracted by his look, without asking who he was. His public appearance provoked curiosity. This young man seemed a god descended among mortals … Looking at him, you felt dazed. His face exercised an irresistible fascination. He was a ‘living manifesto’, as the Legionaries used to call him.”

      Such a description, highlighting an emotive, passionate and even irrational bond between a fascist and his leader, is a typical expression of the charismatic leader dynamic. Though this is an important phenomenon to consider, it can also sometimes be rather lazily used as an essential component of the far right and needs to be used with care.

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      When surveying the emergence of terms such as charisma, charismatic leadership and so forth, it is impossible not to start with the founding sociologist Max Weber. He argued that political legitimacy came in three varieties: traditional, legal bureaucratic and charismatic. Traditional authority operates through customs providing validity to a leader’s decisions, such as with a monarchy; legal bureaucratic works through an impersonal system of rules providing authority, such as within a liberal democracy; and charisma, meaning “gift of grace,” sees authority emanating from the extraordinary nature of a leader, as understood by followers. For Sima, Codreanu clearly evoked the latter.

      Weber added some further nuances to his concept as well. In particular, he wrote of the sense of mission that a charismatic leader evokes, a cause shared by his or her followers, giving their charisma a sense of purpose. For those who do not share this mission, such leaders are unlikely to hold much charismatic appeal. The leader generates their sense of having special qualities by, effectively, becoming a living embodiment of a passionately held cause. They do this as they, somehow or other, go beyond that of others who share the same sense of mission.

      Charismatic bonds between leader and follower are not created by a leader alone but are a phenomenon that emerges from the shared, affective dimension between leaders and followers. As Ann Ruth Willner puts it: “[C]harisma is defined in terms of people’s perceptions of and responses to a leader. It is not what the leader is but what people see the leader as that counts in generating the charismatic relationship.”

      The Duce

      Charisma has been a term applied to many fascist leaders. Emilio Gentile, writing in Modern Italy in 1998, uses Weber’s approach to examine Benito Mussolini’s charisma as emanating from his political mission. He concludes that the Duce experienced periods of greater and lesser charismatic appeal: Firstly as a socialist leader before the First World War, then as a leader of a new radical nationalist movement urging Italy to enter the war, and then once again his charisma grew during the rise of the fascist movement in Italy. Charisma was not a constant, but something that could grow and wane.

      Of course, Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich has been a particular focus for charismatic leadership. John Breuilly, writing in Nations and Nationalism in 2011, states that charismatic leadership was not typical of all nationalist movements, but was common in fascists such as Codreanu, Mussolini and particularly Hitler. The interwar German conditions were unique. As he explains, in modern-day contexts, “it is the product of massive breakdowns of impersonal forms of modern authority that opens up a particular space, although there has to be someone capable of filling that space and, in Hitler’s case, a unique sequence of events leading to charismatic power.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Aristotle Kallis, writing in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions in 2006, also critically engages with Weber’s model and explains the need to differentiate between the leadership cults of movements and regimes, and their ability to foster of a genuine charismatic community. The former did not guarantee the latter, and an authentic charismatic community was only partially developed even in the Third Reich. Even here, Kallis stresses that Weber’s other forms of authority — traditional and legal — continued to hold some influence.

      Roger Eatwell developed another influential analysis of fascist charismatic leadership, building critically on Weber’s model. Writing in The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right in 2018, he argues that as well as mission and personal presence, charismatic leaders promote a Manichean division of the world to help legitimize their emotive bonds with followers. Moreover, he stresses the need to consider the role of charismatic leadership at the level of the coterie, focusing on how the phenomenon helps bind together radical political groups.

      The question regarding the continued importance of charismatic leadership in more recent populist parties has also been much discussed. Duncan McDonnell published an essay in Political Studies that explores charisma at the level of the coterie, focusing on perceptions of charisma amongst populist party members, both elected officials as well as grassroots activists. His approach urges care in applying the term, while by examining interviews with party coteries, he helpfully exemplifies how charisma needs to be studied through assessing the interactions between leaders and followers. As well as concluding that Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Switzerland’s Christoph Blocher were partial charismatic leaders, he concludes that Umberto Bossi was an archetypal charismatic leader of the Northern League — yet this meant his downfall caused the Italian party much damage as a consequence.

      Whether charismatic leadership is an essential component of populism has also been debated. Takis S. Pappas, writing in the Routledge International Handbook of Charisma, states that “populism and charismatic leadership are inescapably interrelated and should always be studied conjoinedly.” Contrastingly, in The Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership, Cas Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasse stress that populism is a complex, variegated phenomenon with many forms of leadership; charismatic leaders are one among various styles among populists, which can even include no leader at all. The latter point seems to echo the cautionary use of the term among historians of fascism. Notably, Roger Griffin resisted using charisma as a defining aspect of fascism in his influential model of the ideology.

      The Short Shelf Life of Charisma

      Nevertheless, some of the most striking figures in recent years in the far right have been charismatic in their style. Donald Trump, the former US president, powerfully unleashed a form of charismatic leadership as he generated an affective bond between himself as a leader and a wider following through a shared sense of mission. However, even this mission does have a shelf life and will not last forever, as his election defeat in 2020 suggests.

      I wrote a short article for The Guardian in 2019 reflecting on Trump as a charismatic leader and predicted a decline in his charismatic appeal over time. Some waning of his charisma has clearly occurred since then, although the study of charisma shows us the phenomenon can ebb and flow. Trump, after all, retains great influence within the Republican Party and continues to enjoy a widespread aura of infallibility among a largescale movement that supports his mission and sees him in emotive, superlative ways.

      As a historian, I leave it to others to predict where this may go in the next few years, but more widely, the relationship between the populist and fascist right and charismatic leaders is both complex and ongoing. For those studying this in the coming years, it is important to focus on the limits of the charisma model as well as its strengths, and it is unhelpful if used to try to explain everything. It is also crucial to consider how people project onto leaders a perception of them as charismatic. After all, charisma does not come from a leader alone — it is projected onto him or her by others. Without this atmosphere, such leaders often have little else to offer. 

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Ex-Trump adviser mocked for claiming Biden pushing ‘plant-based beer’

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      The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has joined a flood of social media users gleefully trolling Larry Kudlow after the former economic adviser to Donald Trump complained that Joe Biden wanted Americans to drink “plant-based beer”.Kudlow made the indignant claim on his Fox Business show on Friday, saying Biden’s climate policies and attempt to slash emissions would force Americans to “stop eating meat, stop eating poultry and fish, seafood, eggs, dairy and animal-based fats”.“OK, got that? No burgers on 4 July. No steaks on the barbecue … So get ready. You can throw back a plant-based beer with your grilled Brussels sprouts and wave your American flag.”Beer is typically made from grains, hops and yeast – not steak, sausages or chops.Amid a blizzard of lacerating social media send-ups, the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman offered a sober analysis of what Kudlow was up to.“So this seems to be the latest rightwing attempt to smear Bidenomics,” he wrote on Saturday. “There is, of course, nothing about eliminating meat in Biden’s plans; so this is like the imaginary mobs that burned our cities to the ground.“If you read what Kudlow actually said, he’s cagey – doesn’t say that Biden proposed this, only that some people say this is what would happen. But Fox viewers won’t notice, which is the intention.“This is what rightwing politics is down to. It’s all false claims about evil liberals, which the base is expected to believe because it’s primed to believe in liberal villainy. They’re not even trying to engage on actual issues.”But on Sunday night Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader in the Senate, chose a more sarcastic path.“Excited to be watching the Oscars with an ice cold plant-based beer,” he tweeted. “Thanks Joe Biden.” More

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      US lawmakers ‘making progress’ on police reform – but it’s still early stages

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      In the aftermath of former police officer Derek Chauvin being convicted of murdering George Floyd, it seems like there is momentum for the US Congress to pass some kind of police reform bill.Hearings on policing have been held and point people on both the Democratic and Republican sides are in ongoing talks. By most metrics, Congress is in a comfortable position to pass some kind of bill meant to deter police brutality and prevent another George Floyd or Eric Garner.But this is Congress in 2021. There have been plenty of moments where bipartisanship seemed high and failure seemed remote right before failure became certain. As a result, and despite the intense societal reckoning over racism playing out in America, there are few people who see the passing of meaningful new laws as a guaranteed outcome.Yet people are talking. “I’m optimistic that we’re making progress. I’m confident that I’m going to negotiate with people at the table and no one else,” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said during a brief interview on Thursday.Scott’s comments came on a day where there was a flurry of movement among the principal lawmakers who will have to be involved in some kind of compromise bill’s passage. The New Jersey senator Cory Booker led a committee hearing on policing reform. The California congresswoman Karen Bass, who sponsored the ill-fated George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, engaged in early discussions with Scott and other members of Congress.Scott had met with Bass on Thursday and said those conversations went “well” but wouldn’t elaborate on specifics or sticking points in a compromise bill.Outside of Congress, high-profile lawmakers have called for passage of some kind of policing bill.Convicting the man who murdered George Floyd was just the first step toward accountability. Join me and the @NAACP_LDF in calling your senators to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to save lives. pic.twitter.com/9v5XoFxGfs— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 22, 2021
      Joe Biden has publicly urged Congress to make another attempt at passing a policing reform bill.“George Floyd was murdered almost a year ago,” the president said in remarks from the White House, adding: “It shouldn’t take a whole year to get this done.”Republicans argued that the Democrat bill put too much power and responsibility at the federal level. So Scott, after being appointed as the point-person on crafting a policing reform bill by the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, pushed his own policing reform bill in 2020 only to have Senate Democrats filibuster it. Scott’s bill proposed to use federal grant money to incentivize police departments to use body cameras and tactics for deescalating situations.But by the end of 2020 a policing reform bill looked like it would stay in the legislative graveyard. Republicans refused to sign on to Democrats’ policing bill and Democrats viewed the Republican counteroffer as a non-starter.In March, after Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, the chamber passed the George Floyd Policing Act. But since then it’s faced ongoing opposition from Republicans in the Senate. The legislation bars law enforcement from engaging in racial profiling, prohibits chokeholds and no-knock warrants. It also creates a national police misconduct registry.But in April 2021 it’s too early to say whether this policing reform momentum is on the same trajectory as in 2020. Discussions, according to multiple congressional aides, are very much in the earliest stages.The presence of Scott at the table is important.“McConnell and the conference trust Scott generally, and on this issue especially because of his past work on it,” said a former Senate Republican leadership chief of staff. “If there’s going to be a bipartisan reform bill that actually comes together this year, the conference trusts him to come up with a compromise that the majority of them will be able to support.”Scott has signaled areas of compromise, such as on qualified immunity where responsibility would fall to police departments instead of individual officers.Talks about sticking points aren’t in full swing yet. Congressional leaders are encouraging early bipartisan talks though. All lawmakers will say, though, is that early progress is being made.“Look, I’ve encouraged Senator Booker to talk to Senator Scott and see if they can come up with something. They are making progress. I’m not going to get into the details of their discussions,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer of New York said. “But if we could come up with a strong bill that deals with this systemic bias that’s been in our police forces for far too long, that would be great. So I’ve encouraged them to talk to one another, and their discussions are making some progress.” More